Friday, January 16, 2015

For the first time in at least 50 years, a majority of U.S. public school students come from low-income families, according to a new analysis of 2013 federal data, a statistic that has profound implications for the nation.

The Southern Education Foundation reports that 51 percent of students in pre-kindergarten through 12th grade were eligible under the federal program for free and reduced-price lunches in the 2012-2013 school year. The lunch program is a rough proxy for poverty, but the explosion in the number of needy children in the nation’s public classrooms is a recent phenomenon that has been gaining attention among educators, public officials and researchers.

Jartstar observes: This will accelerate home schooling and private schooling. In a generation or before most of the major city public schools in the US will be like most of the rest of the 3rd World, poor, dangerous, and offering little education. There will be pockets of good public schools in select communities and neighborhoods. The real collapse will be when enough people take their kids out to kill the funding by stopping bonds.

I tend to suspect the influx of uneducated foreign children has encouraged more than a few parents to pull their children out of the public schools as well. Ironically, there is no state with an education system more segregated than Democrat-run New York.

69 Comments:

"The Southern Education Foundation reports that 51 percent of students in pre-kindergarten through 12th grade were eligible under the federal program for free and reduced-price lunches in the 2012-2013 school year."

***disclaimer: I have not read the whole article and am only responding to this one aspect of it. ***

wooops! methodology flaw.

In some states ALL KIDS get free lunches. They removed all qualifications for free lunches because getting a free lunch gave the poor kids a stigma. So now all the kids eat free. That doesn't mean the ratio of poor to middle class has changed.

The biggest irony is that the wealthy Leftists are the most likely to pull their kids out of public schools that they hypocritically want every one else's kids to be locked into. Which goes to prove that all the policies they champion are huge lies.

Ironically, there is no state with an education system more segregated than Democrat-run New York.

The machinations engaged in by white, liberal, Democrat, middle class professionals in New York state to get their children into select charter schools and away from the orcs and orclings that those same liberals forced upon the school system (now dominated by orcs and orclings) has to be seen to be believed.

In some states ALL KIDS get free lunches. They removed all qualifications for free lunches because getting a free lunch gave the poor kids a stigma.

Yep. Also, one teacher told me that in her school, they figured out that they were spending more administering the school lunch program than it would have cost to give free lunches to the few kids who still didn't qualify. No more paperwork, no more keeping track of each kid's daily usage, no more dealing with kids forgetting to bring their lunch money. Just run the kids through the line and feed them. Kinda made sense, but I never heard if they were able to get permission from the state to do it.

Segregated requires a pool that can be divided as God did for Moses when he parted the Red Sea. New York's schools are bound by the urban cores and there just aren't many white kids left in the urban school districts or any of the surrounding districts because, white flight. It is still not too difficult to learn in a school with a minority population, but once the % changes to 'mostly minority', learning has left the building.

I've been wondering when the left will make a major push to ban or reduce homeschooling. They've made small attacks in my state, trying to add testing requirements and the like, but mobs have always shown up at the capitol in time to stop them.

Seems to me they'll have to try at some point. There's just no way the left can maintain the necessary level of indoctrination without most kids going to a state-regulated school (public or private) and being taught by state-educated and -licensed teachers. They can live with a few percent of kids being homeschooled, but if it gets up in the double digits, they'll have to try to stop it. I think it'll already be too late then, but it'll be a fight.

"....Ironically, there is no state with an education system more segregated than Democrat-run New York."Excuse me? Ok, there USED to be a saying..."....oh, but not in MY back yard"It's come back to haunt (ie)Harvard "experts" with "Affordable Health Care"CaptDMO

Home schooling is not feasible for most families. In California, location guarrantees the best public schools. It is expensive to live in a good area, but this is made up by not having to send your kids to a private school. 49 percent are not getting free or reduced price lunches. This is still a sizable amount of people.

In a generation or before most of the major city public schools in the US will be like most of the rest of the 3rd World, poor, dangerous, and offering little education.In some areas that's already the case.

Schools are only as good as their source material, ie, their students. But this has been an absolutely verboten piece of crimethink in "educational policy" for nearly half-a-century now.

I am quite sure - based on conversations and other evidence - that a lot of people in education policy more or less assume that the "achievement gaps" are fixed and immobile, but they have no desire to say it out loud, and they'd be loudly purged from career and public life if they did.

Allowing in so many illegals has ruined many SoCal school systems. Mexican kids are poorly educated when they arrive, their parents put little emphasis on education, and the schools are a mess. The schools don't separate the non-English speakers to get them up to speed and insert them into regular classes later --that'd be raciss of course--- but they won't demand much of them in regular classes and it turns into a lowest-common-denominator situation where everyone in the class kinda learns in English and kinda in Spanish.

I remember my second-gen Mexican friend pulling his children out of public school and telling me he much preferred English, but wouldn't mind them learning in Spanish if the schools actually taught in Spanish-- but the schools taught neither in Sp nor Eng, they taught in a bad mix of both all day, week, and year.

My wife and I home schooled our children till high school. One of the reasons we decided to take our children out of public school for elementary and middle schools was the amount of time teachers spent dealing with problem children. In quite a few instances the teachers could not fully complete their teaching plans (or teach in depth on a fundamental) because of the issues caused by the problem children. We could see that our child's education was suffering because the teacher was attempting to fulfill the roles of both nanny and teacher.We live in California near the very affluent Silicon Valley and can see that the local school districts are getting worse. (thankfully last one graduated this last year).

I remember my second-gen Mexican friend pulling his children out of public school and telling me he much preferred English, but wouldn't mind them learning in Spanish if the schools actually taught in Spanish-- but the schools taught neither in Sp nor Eng, they taught in a bad mix of both all day, week, and year.

A ctrl-F of that WaPo article finds no mention of the world 'immigration', unless of course, you include the comments. Just like last week's attack in France had nothing to do with immigration either. At this point I doubt many will ever come to their senses and reverse course on mass immigration.

In 1968, in western Montana, the school began to issue different colored lunch tickets for the poor kid. I say kid, because there was just one.

I remember the poor girl, as she was pushed into a line by herself, by teachers who seemed to think there should be a separate line for the poor kid(s).

It was very embarrassing for her, and awkward for most of the rest of us as well.

The point is, there was only ONE poor kid!

The second point is, what utter fucking retards the teachers were, to make a big production out of the whole thing, and to humiliate the poor girl as they did. It wasn't bad enough that she had second hand clothes that didn't fit.

She sat by herself and ate her free meal.

Another memory....there were exactly two fat kids. One girl, and one boy. Out of maybe 80 kids.

I forgot to add that the lead photo of this story is clearly a Mexican woman and child, yet immigrant does not appear in the story. Also, I imagine the flood of Central American kids this summer, who helped get Kantor defeated in the Va primary, have only added to the level of poor kids in our K-12 public system.

Cryin Ryan:In 1968, in western Montana, the school began to issue different colored lunch tickets for the poor kid. I say kid, because there was just one.Similar in upstate NY when I was a kid: Kids were issued 'lunch tokens' (although cash was also accepted). Red = full price, Lt. Blue = reduced (semi-subsidized) price, Green = ''free''. The school strongly encouraged parents to pre-purchase the tokens.

A business associate of mine tells me that in Brazil, if you have money, send your kids to private school and for medical needs, use the private facilities and doctors. The Brazilian state education system is a shambles. The medical facilities and doctors will likely kill you as to help you due to poor conditions and untrained staff.

My wife is nearing retirement from a small rural hospital and can't wait to get out. New medical staff and nurses are marginal, plus the federal push toward more dependency on minimally trained nurses and outpatient for everything. She has a hard time working with new female staff since most only want the best hours, plenty of sick time, "me" time, vacation and constant bitching from watching too many hours of Dr. Phil, Jerry Springer, The View and other similar type shows. When someone offers their opinion because they watch "Dr. Oz" or "The Doctors", she just about loses it.

daddynichol, that is the biggest reason I got out of nursing, fresh newbies that knew everything, complained they had to work the off shifts and that their kid's school and extracurricular activities took precedent. Don't get me on "minimally trained nurses" giving jobs and responsibilities that should have gone to someone with experience and additional training.

Both of my parents were public school teachers, and for that reason I have intimate knowledge of the dysfunction of the system. Glad to see there's an asteroid on its way to kill this dinosaur of a system.

JartStar: The real collapse will be when enough people take their kids out to kill the funding by stopping bonds.

Can someone translate this for me? I have no idea how this works; I thought we were all forced to pay for public schools through property taxes, regardless of whether we have children in schools or not. Why would that ever stop?

Doesn't schools get funding from the Federal Government for attendance of said child? That would be beyond what property taxes provide? That is what pays for those school bonds people are so happy to authorize when the school wants something?

This is so strange. I remember back in the 60s when the first major busing cases came down, Time Newsweek, the NYT et al. were full of articles about "white flight schools" popping up all over the South. It wasn't until much later I realized that the Time/Newsweek/NYT types already had their kids in white flight schools. Now, of course, they just call them "good schools".

There's nearly always a support level from the community in property taxes for public schools, but most if not all districts sell municipal bonds to get money more quickly and then the tax rate is sometimes raised to pay for the bond. If no additional taxes are raised the municipality has to pay for the bond out of general revenue, which means it isn't spending the money on other things. One might argue they are robbing Peter to pay Paul, but it's a way for the voters to say how local money is going to be spent, and allow for the possibility of increased taxes.

Bonds typically don't pay for the normal budget, but rather are spent on specific projects like building a new school or upgrading facilities. The bond allows a school to purchase something large like a school rather than saving 30 years and then purchasing it like a mortage on a house. Communities will sometimes punish an unpopular superintendent by voting down all bonds until that person is removed from office.

The danger is if the middle class pulls out of public schools then new bonds are unlikely to ever pass, so the schools will have to fight for the general revenue or try to raise taxes.

I'm no bond expert so another of the Ilk can probably correct some of this.

I have no idea how this works; I thought we were all forced to pay for public schools through property taxes, regardless of whether we have children in schools or not. Why would that ever stop?

If 50% of parents homeschooled, the schools wouldn't be able to push through their constantly increasing tax rates and bond measures. Actually, it wouldn't take that many, since the homeschoolers could band together with the childless and those using private schools.

Doesn't schools get funding from the Federal Government for attendance of said child?

They do get money with strings attached from the feds and the state for various things (sometimes matching funds for capital improvements, so the locals still have to pony up), but most of the funding comes from local taxes (at least in my state). If you pay property taxes, get a breakdown of where your property taxes go. Around here, the bulk goes to the schools.

Jart, that is pretty close, though I would add most voters have no idea about any of this so using this only works if the word so to speak is spread. Also not every system uses bonds. Trust me these holding camps for "the Saints" is here to stay even if the Feds have to step in and borrow trillions to do it.

If you pay property taxes, get a breakdown of where your property taxes go. Around here, the bulk goes to the schools.

That's how it is my state. The majority my county property taxes, 85%, went to the local school district. For years people whose kids had graduated, or those who didn't have kids, paid this tax because there was some sense of community and the right thing to do. As entire school districts become more and more racially and ethnically distinct from the whites who pay the bulk of the taxes, I'd imagine whites would start to vote for candidates at the county level who will decrease this school tax. Either that, or they will continue to flee leaving behind districts with kids whose parents have little means to support the schools.

I believe that the collapse of government schools is a good thing. I attended all white public schools in Northern Indiana and Ft. Lauderdale when they were supposedly effective. They weren't, even then. I lucked out and had an excellent 4th grade old lady teacher, and male teachers for 5th and 6th grades, but what I got was the basic Bismarckian factory worker education. When I compare my government education to the Classical Christian one I obtainedfor my son it is like comparing gruel to a 4 course meal. Grammar, Dialect, and Rhetoric are the true builind blocks of an educated man. Close the damn government schools. They are designed to retard hoi polloi , not to advance them.

So, with Obama trying to force more affluent suburbs to absorb low-income people, I wonder how that might influence this process.

Like any good progressive program it will likely have the opposite effect of its intended. People who have the means just won't subject their kids to inferior education and hostile environments. Over time parents will remove their kids and find other options. Homeschooling will be one option, co-ops, private schools and even more creative solutions will be found. The situation isn't static, the parents won't sit idly by forever. While the progressives seem indomitable at times, their inability to understand that situations are dynamic is a huge flaw. It just doesn't occur to them that if you disrupt a good school parents will leave that school and form good ones again.

Besides, the degradation of the schools isn't ubiquitous. There will be plenty of fine public schools around if you move to the right area. Just ask Scalzi about his neck of the woods and the demographics of who lives there.

The jews using statements such as their need to "lead" and us 'follow' is why this bitch and members of her tribe get blamed rightfully for high crimes against God and the people, including genocide, murder, theft and societal/civilizational collapse. The jews are murderers, who are against God and see themselves in the place of the Most High. Never let this be forgotten.

JartStar: Like any good progressive program it will likely have the opposite effect of its intended. People who have the means just won't subject their kids to inferior education and hostile environments.

True. We have some not-so-liberal-anymore friends who were seething with anger over the fact that kids from low-income neighborhoods were being bused to their neighborhood school. For a while, they sent their kids out of the country to live with relatives and go to school overseas; now they're paying for private school. If they had no other options, I know for a fact they'd homeschool.

There will be plenty of fine public schools around if you move to the right area. Just ask Scalzi about his neck of the woods and the demographics of who lives there.

CailCorishev: "I've been wondering when the left will make a major push to ban or reduce homeschooling."

This is one of my biggest concerns. It's going to happen, the only question is when. I doubt we have the 20+ years we need to get all our (hoped for) children through.

We've tried to insulate ourselves by living in the South. I've also been seriously considering going back to school to get an education degree. The idea is repellent, but it might provide some cover. No child of mine will ever spend a day in a government-run school, so I'm willing to do whatever it takes.

I was born and raised in NYC, so watching the frantic Facebook posts of old (progressive) friends scrambling to get their kids into a decent school provides no end of amusement.

Here in the Twin Cities, some of the public schools even have meals on holidays and in the summers. One of the larger ones I deliver to is constantly getting shipments of medications for the built-in clinic. Some have ophthalmologists on site too.

In other words, they're doing their best to become surrogate parents of sorts. Crazy.

Between my ex and I, we probably make $150K. Our kids gets "free" breakfast and lunch at their suburban school.

There's a limit to the amount of support people have for programs which don't benefit them, and the statists are very aware of this.

Years ago I watched Charlie Rose interview Daniel Patrick Moynihan about the state of Social Security's books. "Should we make it means tested," asks Rose. "Oh no, " says Moynihan, "If we do that people who don't qualify will stop supporting the program and it'll be gone in a few years. People will say 'They should have saved like I did' and we won't have enough support to continue."

Private schools can be much cheaper than they are. I think that some sort of collective homeschool might be the path for those who can't afford $100 a week per kid. What do you really need? A room, a whiteboard, a teacher, some tables and benches, some paper and pencils, and an interest in learning.

There's a limit to the amount of support people have for programs which don't benefit them, and the statists are very aware of this.

This limit is also going to be tested as this nation becomes more diverse. People will support welfare type programs more when they can relate to the folks receiving the help. That is why social safety nets work better in high-functioning, homogenous societies like Japan, Finland, etc., than they do in diverse states with highly unrelated population groups.

When Japanese or Finns pay for safety nets, the beneficiaries are really distant relatives of themselves.

When Americans now pay into our safety net, increasingly the recipients are not like the tax payers, and in some instances don't even speak the same language.

Just like white taxpayers will probably want to flee minority school districts where they have no skin in the game, white taxpayers are not thrilled they have to pay for an illegal woman's maternity care, especially when she just first stepped foot into this country during her third trimester.

I'm reminded of the handful of German families who made it into the news lately trying to flee the German compulsory school system. " A new ruling from the European Human Rights Court has affirmed the German nation’s Nazi-era ban on homeschooling, concluding that society has a significant interest in preventing the development of dissent through “separate philosophical convictions."It would appear, just by looking at the Romeike's case, that the progressive elites have been paying attention to white flight from the school system and are already taking pains to set up legal precedents for the eventual confrontation. http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/07/19/german-homeschooling-family-will-take-their-fight-to-the-supreme-court/

WIC is a corporate giveaway to Big Ag. It's terrible and inefficient on top of things. SNAP actually lets the free market operate a little bit, so it's better. People just like WIC because they're obsessed with poors only getting in-kind help, even though this is less effective even with deserving poor and basically useless with undeserving poor.

As for the school taxes situation, it can get pretty complicated. Where I live, a big chunk of our property taxes aren't local, there is a convoluted process by which we pay for poorer districts all over the state, as do other relatively well-off districts. And homeowners refuse to turn out at higher rates than renting single mothers when it comes to property tax increases, so they keep coming and coming. It's worse than bond issues, some people actually worry a little about debt for a whole district or county. But a renting single mother who gets her kid an IEP so they can have free daycare and transportation there and back when the kid is 3, plus someone coming over to hang out with the kid for 1-2 hours 1-4x a week before that is going to vote for every tax increase under the sun she can. It's not coming out of her pocket after all (small landlords generally speaking can't raise the rent to cover property tax increases without losing the ability to get consistently rent-paying tenants).

Because they can. It is the same as allowing blasphemy. It is an emblem of freedom. You should celebrate it. Jews are all about being free. That is what Hollywood told me. That is why God freed them from the Egyptians, according to Hollywood. Now, the actual statement by God is recorded in the Torah, that He freed them to serve Him, on account of His promise to their Forbears, the Patriarchs.

But Jews don't want to aknowledge that, so they have to put up with the same bullshit that they lay on everyone else. Oy vey, don't be so afraid of competition.

Vox commented on NYC, so I am compelled to offer the local perspective.

Here in Democrat-controlled New York City, the old is new again. Once upon a time, the CUNY (City University of New York) system was a jewel of public education, but in 1970, the Board of Trustees for CUNY folded to arguments similar to those used today and turned CUNY from highly selective to open admissions. Almost overnight, enrollment nearly doubled and the value of a CUNY degree diluted to almost nothing as the underqualified choked what had once been a superb public college education. We risk the same fiasco on the high school level. Brooklyn Tech, Bronx High School of Science and Stuyvesant High School - all public - are by any measure excellent high schools, comparable to the most exclusive private equivalents in the nation. Admissions is based on testing. Unfortunately, Mayor DiBlasio and the City Council have noticed that these high schools educate a disproportionate number of Asians and whites at the expense of blacks and Latinos. So guess what our beloved Communist mayor is thinking of doing in the name of diversity?

Homeschooling has been growing in New York City even before DiBlasio took office. Home school parents search out other home schoolers, and with population density as it is here, are able to combine their efforts, producing superlative results on average in both academic and social measures. Far from advancing the cause of minorities, DiBlasio's typical short-sighted efforts in this realm will chase many deserving students into applying for private schools catering to the mega-wealthy, competing for the already ultra-competitive slots at parochial school equivalents like Regis, or a homeschool situation. With online and offline resources flourishing for homeschool parents and children, I think (and hope) that loosening standards for the few flagship public schools of New York City will backfire, further eroding support for public education, the teachers' unions, and ultimately/hopefully, the numbskull mayor himself.

My only quibble as to the notion of 51% of students now being eligible for subsidies has as more to do with an economic decline that is being hidden, and the importation and forced pseudo-intigration of foreign children. How much of which is another thing altogether.

On the other hand, the false wealth through decades of deception also changed what was perceived as poor, middle class, and the wealthy. Much of what has existed was a fiction. Add to that an administration, or three, which have tossed money to the masses, trying to increase debt and spending, and how much of the new qualifiers are simply qualifying because .gov is changing the rules is also a subject that would affect the outcome.

Yes, homeschooling is wiser by far, safer for children, and will instill better things, like family, and the potential for prayer and other right notions. I just am not sure this argument is really valid for that, as it is corrupted by various fictions that dispute the validity of the claim.

It might have been Limbaugh who pointed this out: several years ago, the cost of public school in a particular state reached $10/child/year. So if you could start your own school and charge that for 25 kids from your neighborhood (no buses), you'd pull in $250K/year. You'd need to spend some of that on equipment, books, etc., but you could still do quite well.

The problem with private schools is that they're basically copies of the public schools except that they can be selective. They mostly get their teachers from the same left-wing education colleges and their books from the same left-wing publishers, and they're highly regulated by the state. To the extent that they're better, it's because they have fewer bad kids, not because they do anything very differently.

That state regulation of private schools limits the options of homeschoolers. A state may grudgingly allow you to teach your own kids in your own home your own way, but banding together with other parents who aren't able to do it full-time and hiring a couple part-time tutors to teach the group the tougher subjects suddenly makes you a private school, and now you need licenses and fire escapes and handicapped entrances and expense upon expense. That helps keep the homeschoolers in their ghetto, since only the die-hards with one full-time at-home parent can even try it.

What's interesting is that in most Liberal Run Areas they use the local school method, yet, when someplace in the South tries to do that, these same liberals freak out. They tried to make this happen in my Wake County, and liberal run papers around the country went ballistic. Yet, Liberals love their local schools, because then the middle and upper class liberals don't have to worry about dealing with the diversity and multiculturalism they themselves push.

Y'all are missing one big favor driving this change: the wealthy don't have very many kids, while the poor do. Many of my friends, who are mostly middle-class to UMC professionals, have one kid, and have stopped. Almost none have three or more. Most of the families with three kids that I see during my daily life are Mexican. (Depo-Provera seems to have kept a lot of black women from having more than two kids - I don't see a lot of three-kid families among the local black population, but many black adults have two or more siblings.)

So when your middle-class families have 1.5 kids, and your poor families have 2.5, the poor can be outnumbered but still make up a majority of the kids in school, even without the middle class going private or homeschool.

Cailcorishev: If meth can be manufactured and distributed, so can education. Not easy, not legal, but doable. Remember, you're defending your children from a degenerate, dying culture. I know that sounds simplistic, but it's true. The homeschoolers had to fight to get what they have, and they'll have to fight some more. All means are justified in self defense.

Cailcorishev: The post above, "Christian Revival in the Heart of Secularism", shows a solution. Home churching and home schooling go together. If you have a real community, you can have real community schools.